“Why the Holocaust Centre is wrong to promote “exclusive” Holocaust education”?

The debate over Holocaust education in New Zealand schools is not about whether the Holocaust should be taught — it should. The argument is whether Holocaust education is taught in universal terms as a warning against racism and genocide everywhere, or as an exclusive political narrative shaped by institutions with their own agendas.

Holocaust education must be universal, not exclusive

Submission from the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa to Tuhūrangi – New Zealand Curriculum regarding the introduction of compulsory Holocaust Studies to the History Curriculum for Year 10 in two topic areas under World War Two.

Summary

PSNA supports including Holocaust education in the compulsory curriculum. But this education must be delivered in the broader context of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the other components of customary international law.

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It is simply not appropriate for the curriculum to centre genocide of Europeans while bypassing the numerous genocides of people of colour throughout colonial history, including in Aotearoa New Zealand, and up to the present day.

The New Zealand curriculum needs to put the message of “never again” from the Nazi Holocaust to the test in the modern world where “never again” is being ignored and genocide of Palestinians, for example, is normalised by European powers. Some six million Jews were killed by Germany’s Nazi regime in the 1940s, along with some six million others who did not fit the Nazi view of Ariyan racial superiority and purity.

All these 12 million people should have their memories honoured, but in association with numerous other genocides occurring to this day, such as the Israeli-backed Rapid Support Services’ massacres in Dafur Province in Sudan.

Most importantly, is the current, on-going, western-backed genocide of the Palestinian people by Israel. (Note: All major human rights groups such as Al Haq, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s largest and most respected human rights group B’Tselem, along with genocide scholars, have condemned Israeli action in Gaza as genocide)

Just as the Nazi Holocaust was the defining human rights issue of the 20th century, Palestine is the defining human rights issue for the 21st century and it continues to play out in real-time.Any credible curriculum must include both of these as the leading, but unfortunately not the only, examples of “the crime of crimes” – genocide.

Of clear concern to PSNA is the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand, which is advocating Holocaust education in the curriculum, while refusing to condemn Israel’s genocidal rhetoric or the mass killing and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. The Holocaust Centre is part-funded by the Israeli Embassy and hard-pressed teachers will likely use “exclusive” material from the Centre in their social studies classes.

The scope of what is to be taught must be broadened and guard rails introduced.

The Terms of Reference and Draft Topics

The terms of reference and draft topics of the proposed introduction of Holocaust Studies into the Secondary School curriculum at Year 10 are high level and appear to not be contentious.

Under ‘The Road to War 1918 to 1939’ the draft prescribes;

Persecution of the Jews and other minorities

• Early persecution of Jews and other minority groups and linkages to pogroms in Europe in previous decades.
• Nuremberg Laws (1935) and Kristallnacht (1938).
• Holocaust (see World War Two)

Under WORLD WAR TWO AND NEW ZEALAND’S ROLE 1939–1945’ the draft prescribes;

Origins of Nazi antisemitism.

• Escalation: Kristallnacht (1938), ghettos, emigration, and mass shootings in Eastern Europe.
• The ‘Final Solution’: Extermination camps (e.g. Auschwitz, Treblinka).
• Victims, resistance, and liberation; legacy and remembrance.

Much can be read into the final bullet point of the second part, particularly in relation to the quite contradictory conclusions of what the ‘legacy’ involves. Presumably study of ‘legacy’ is to elicit some form of lesson for future attitudes and behaviour as the pupils grow older.

A conclusion and lesson could be of a particular narrow nature, in essence of ‘Nazis versus Jews’. Or the outcome to be understood is of a conversely universal one, of ‘Racism versus Humanity’.

Given the stated agenda of some of those promoting this curriculum introduction, in particular the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand, the curriculum will be subjected to attempts of mission creep towards the promotion of narrow views and attitudes, which we suggest would be quite contrary to New Zealand government policy of support for customary international law, as well failing in the need for the provision of an objective education on the causes and perils of racism.

We believe there is considerable value in education to heighten awareness of racism in our schools and moreover to promote and suggest how this social evil may be both identified early and combated vigorously.

New Zealand has no history of teaching civic duties. This perhaps has been viewed as a dangerous move to enforce ‘political correctness’ or some other form of social engineering, and thus never entered into the syllabus.

There is of course that danger. That is the source of our concern in the present instance.

The Nature of our Objections to the proposal as worded.

Firstly, there is the Eurocentric scope of Holocaust studies. The choice of the Holocaust as a stand-alone subject within the History Curriculum is reflective of this Eurocentric view.

More broadly, the choice strongly suggests that study of the organised slaughter of Jewish communities by Nazi Germany is intensely particular to its victims, and perhaps its perpetrators too, so that it is unnecessary, and maybe even misleading, to broaden the study to other massacres or genocides at other times and places.

The Holocaust Centre’s expressed view that “Antisemitism is the world’s oldest hatred” is a slogan which does not reflect an objective analysis of even exclusively European early history. It is an ideological statement of prioritising antisemitism over all other forms of racism.

Focus on the Holocaust moreover dismisses and marginalises the horrendous history of slavery and colonialism over the past 600 years to give primacy to a particularly European event with European victims.

The ‘Middle Passage’ slavery route from Africa to the Americas began in the 16th Century and lasted until the 19th Century. In an integrated Atlantic colonial and imperial trading system, up to 20 million people were trafficked to the Americas with a cruel legacy of such intensity that it manifests to this day in the United States and in many parts of Africa.

The trade would not have been possible without the creation and ready availability of ocean-going vessels built in Europe to transport the slave cargoes. Advancing technology thus enabled the scale of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

This is similar to the availability of a European rail network to the Schutzstaffel (SS) to facilitate the scale of the Holocaust. But in the instances of both slavery and Holocaust atrocities, technology was however not the cause – it was the enabler.

Even within Europe the Holocaust is not a unique genocide. The persecution, murder and expulsion of the Protestant Huguenots in France, by the Catholic Church and kings between 1562 and 1787, is but one example.

More recently, the Turkish Genocide killed more than a million Armenians from 1894, most in 1915, and culminated in the massacre of Greeks in Smyrna in 1922. This genocide illustrates such persecution in Europe and West Asia does not exclusively belong to ancient history, nor make the Holocaust a unique event in modern history.

The massacre of the Herero and Namas people in South-West Africa at the hands of the German Empire between 1904 and 1908, introduced a cruel and widespread chain of massacres throughout the 20th Century beyond the Ottoman Empire, in widespread locations such as East Timor, Srebrenica, Rwanda, Myanmar and Somalia.

Were an objective and global view taken of what should be presented as Genocide Studies, then an inclusive sweep of other tragic events and atrocities, where Europeans were not the sole victims, would result in a less subjective and selective focus for New Zealand school pupils to be exposed to.

For instance, in the Taiping Rebellion in China between 1851 and 1864, up to 30 million people were killed. This horrendous toll is hardly known in the West, let alone studied as to its causes and consequences, let alone subject to Zionist ideological adjudication over the validity of interpretations.

Apart from the huge death tally, it would be illuminating to explore the cause of the Taiping Rebellion as a study of the consequences of the 19th Century Western invasion of China through the Opium Wars and the role of Christianity.

Some 5.6% of the population of Aotearoa are of Chinese descent.

Moreover, the horrendous and genocidal Nanjing Massacre in December 1937, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, occurred merely a year after the Nazis passed the infamous Nuremberg Laws. Yet we see no mention of any reference in the draft curriculum to the Nanjing Massacre during December 1937, nor even the broader Japanese invasion of Korea and China, and the racial doctrines underpinning Imperial Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, in the draft World War Two curriculum.

The Holocaust began with the antisemitic creed of the German Nazi Party. It escalated into Kristalnacht and the Nuremburg Laws.

In the early stages of the Second World War the systematic persecution of European Jewry under occupation was perpetrated by increasingly specialist Einsatzgruppen squads and non-German auxiliaries.

These massacres were not markedly different from what had occurred in various parts of Europe previously.

Following the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942, the Third Reich escalated the Holocaust to highly systematic mass transportation of Jews in occupied Europe to labour and concentration camps.

This marked what could be called the industrialisation of genocide for the first time in history (as alluded to by the Holocaust Centre media release of 25 August 2025).

But it is difficult to see how objectively this caused the Holocaust to be qualitatively different to these previously cited persecutions, usually religiously based, in Europe from Medieval times onwards.

Indeed, it is true that the advanced industrial infrastructure available to the Nazi regime enabled the massive deportation of Jews and others, throughout mostly Western Europe, to the death camps in Poland.

But the technical ability of the SS to carry out this atrocity, is irrelevant to the grotesque ideology which generated it and should only be of marginal interest in any lessons of understanding why such ideology arose and what must be done to recognise and apprehend the evil when it arises in quite different forms, places and circumstances.

New Zealand region examples

It would be beneficial for school pupils in Aotearoa to also learn about a closer to home history. For instance, in Australia, massacres were inflicted within the past 100 years in more than 417 documented cases against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

More than 10,000 people were killed between 1788 and 1930. The nature of the killings, especially in Queensland, has been described by scholars as genocidal.

Thus, the Bondi Beach killing in December 2025 was not ‘the worst massacre in Australian history’, as much of the uneducated and selective Australian news media and politicians were claiming at the time.

The draft Year 9 New Zealand history syllabus begins in 1840. What is usually called the Musket Wars began in 1806, and they continued five years into the study period. Yet there is no mention of them in the course outline, despite their dramatic impact on Māori.

In particular, for the purposes of this submission, the genocide of the Morori, one of the most thorough anywhere in the past 200 years, and part of our national history, is not considered worthy of any study.

There is, at the very least, an incongruity at play in setting the curriculum study topics.

There is, in short, every reason for study of genocide in general, and not restrict study to a narrow study of the Holocaust.

Role of the Holocaust Centre and Israel’s Hasbara Offensive

The New Zealand Holocaust Centre plays an important role in Aotearoa for the worldwide Israeli government Hasbara programme to protect and enhance the image of the State of Israel against criticism of its genocidal, apartheid and ethnic cleansing actions. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu describes this programme of engineering public support for Israel as its ‘eighth front’ to accompany its seven military fronts.

That programme includes its school education activities and materials. The Centre states its intention is to provide resources to schools as part of the proposed history curriculum.

The Centre, while purportedly having the function to stand witness to the Holocaust is also active in weaponising that Holocaust.

The Centre is preparing to deliver into that curriculum.

‘We are now planning to expand our work with teachers to ensure they are well-equipped to teach the Holocaust with confidence, accuracy, and care.

Together, we can help ensure the lessons of the Holocaust are never forgotten — and that every generation learns from them.’

This is of major concern to PSNA.

The Holocaust Centre’s political stance in support of Israel and its prioritisation of antisemitism over other forms of racism is evident from its position statements.

https://www.holocaustcentre.org.nz/uploads/1/2/2/4/122437058/published/sacks-1.png?1768172055

The Holocaust Centre’s partisan stance is also shown in its media statements. For example:

22 January 2026

‘Antisemitism is the world’s oldest hatred.’

25 August 2025

‘We believe it is irresponsible to apply the term “genocide”’ to describe Israel’s attack on Gaza.

‘The Holocaust is a historically unique atrocity, characterised by its ideologically driven, industrialised system of genocide. Equating the Holocaust with Israel’s military operations in Gaza introduces false moral equivalence and distorts both history and public discourse.’

‘The Holocaust Centre continues to call for … the disarmament of Hamas’.

11 July 2025

‘Much of this (antisemitic) rhetoric is disguised as concern for the human rights of Palestinians or concern about Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza’.

Reference: MEDIA RELEASES – Holocaust Centre of New Zealand

The Centre conducts tours by teachers to Israel to learn about Israel and the Holocaust. It does not conduct visits to anywhere where the Holocaust actually occurred.

The Centre is the only institution in Aotearoa, as far as we are aware, to have adopted the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of antisemitism and its 11 examples.

The Holocaust Centre advocates for this definition and its examples to be introduced into New Zealand.

https://www.holocaustcentre.org.nz/uploads/1/2/2/4/122437058/holocaust_centre_of_new_zealand_stands_up_to_antisemitism.pdf

Most of these examples are to restrict criticism of the nature of the state of Israel, a state for which there is an international consensus that it is based on an apartheid system which discriminates against Palestinians and is committing genocide.

https://aijac.org.au/fact-sheets/the-ihra-working-definition-of-antisemitism/

Were this definition to be introduced into New Zealand law and practice, we have little doubt that enforcement would breach the terms of Section 14 of the Bill of Rights Act;

14 Freedom of expression

Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.

The IHRA definition is the device which over the past few years has been the definitional core of the concerted drive by the State of Israel and its allies, in the Western World in particular, to introduce measures which are ostensibly designed to combat the scourge of antisemitism, but in reality with the dual intention of undermining accountabilities for Israel and closing down support for Palestinian rights. Under the IHRA terms for example, if in legislation, it would be illegal to say that Israel is an apartheid state.

For example, in Australia, the newly created Special Envoy against Antisemitism Jillian Segal has been appointed and the IHRA definition of antisemitism has been introduced and enforced in such institutions as Australian universities.

One of Segal’s first moves was to demand cuts in funding for universities which failed to take what she considered sufficient action against campus protests in support of Palestinian rights.

We are well aware that a read of the Centre’s proposal for Holocaust Studies makes no mention of the State of Israel, let alone any advocacy for it.

Our concern is that Holocaust studies are invariably driven by a paradigm of perpetual and unique Jewish victimhood. This makes the step to perception of Israel as “always the victim” so much easier.

The Centre appears to be the lead champion of this addition to the curriculum. It presents itself as focused on the Holocaust, which it points out includes Sinti, gays, handicapped people and political opponents of the Nazi regime.

However, this institution is also funded in part by the Israeli Embassy, issues media statements calling for the surrender of Hamas in Gaza and describes antisemitism as the ‘original form of racism’.

Though some may find these things to be inconsequential, it is appropriate to remind readers of this submission that, according to a swathe of respective organisations (including the Human Rights Council of the UN) the State of Israel has been conducting a genocide in Gaza for the past two and a half years. An equally impressive range of scholars and institutions have categorised the State of Israel as an apartheid state.

There is a Hasbara Department in Israel, whose function is to enhance the image of Israel throughout the world and counter and suppress the voices of Palestinians and their supporters. Support of Holocaust studies is a key responsibility.

Attention should be given to one of the IHRA examples of antisemitism which reads;

• Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).

The Holocaust Centre has stated that it supports the definition examples. It is a chilling restriction of the obligation to provide for open debate in society in general which is spelt out in S14 of the Bill of Rights Act.

It is at least important that school pupils who are studying World War Two would be able to question in class what they are being taught about the Holocaust, in exactly the same way they would, we are sure, be encouraged by their teachers to question any other aspect of the Second World War.

The IHRA example prohibits ‘denying…intentionality…(of) accomplices’. If a pupil raised, for instance, the intentionality of the kapos, would it be the duty of the teacher to inform the class that such discussion was contrary to the IHRA?

(Kapos, called Funktionshäftling by the SS, were prisoners, including Jews, who collaborated with the Nazis to serve in leadership or administrative roles over others interned in the same Nazi concentration camp)

Pupils likewise would be prohibited from conjecturing on the ‘scope’ of the Holocaust under the IHRA rules. We are unable to find what the correct scope of the Holocaust is meant to be in IHRA explanations. Presumably it is what the State of Israel decides it to be at any one time.

Thus, there is a Medieval type dogma to be conveyed to school pupils. There is one answer (albeit unspecified) and a breach of the IHRA terms if it is even questioned. We submit this is not an appropriate restriction on how education is provided in Aotearoa New Zealand.

It is because of independent media that Year 10 pupils have already been exposed to alternative and wider contexts. Their exposure is far more extensive than their parents reading ‘Exodus’ or the myriad of other Holocaust narratives. These pupils will have questions

We are aware that the IHRA definition has yet to be introduced into New Zealand, but we are certain the Holocaust Centre will be citing it to the government if it believes its terms have been breached by a disobedient and therefore automatically antisemitic history teacher.

It would be reasonable to believe that it will object to any delivery of the curriculum which it does not agree with.

Why this is important

Our strong reservations about the draft curriculum are not an academic argument. The introduction of “exclusive” Holocaust studies would be a success for a lobby group which by and large denies the genocide of the Palestinians, and seeks to develop a Holocaust narrative promoted by the State of Israel to engender sympathy for Israel’s apartheid and genocidal ambitions.

All genocides have particular characteristics, dependent on ideologies, history, availability of resources to carry them out, political purposes of the perpetrator and degree of support from external parties.

The uniqueness of the Holocaust (and thus the obligation for it to be taught to secondary students) appears to be based explicitly on the argument of how it was industrialised by the Nazis, and implicitly founded on the fact that it was perpetuated on Europeans and provided a justification for invading Palestine to create Israel.

PSNA would argue that the genocide of Palestinians has unique features as well. It occurs despite developments in international customary law which should prevent it, such as UNSC 242 in 1967 which prohibits the acquisition of land by war.

The genocide and occupation occurs with the explicit provision of armaments and intelligence gathering for Israel by many countries, including by New Zealand with firms such as Rakon and Rocket Lab supplying military surveillance and targeting technology.

Despite every effort by Israel to hide its crimes in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, from the world, social media in particular provides an endless stream of the realities of the horror being delivered on the Palestinians and Lebanese, leading to a realisation that governments are indifferent to it.

The genocide of the Palestinians would also not be possible without the pervasive and insidious Islamophobia thriving throughout the Western World, as it was the inspiration for the Christchurch masjid massacres in 2019.

This alone illustrates that a secondary level study of racism and genocide would be of more genuine and necessary merit, then an exclusive and corruptible course on the Holocaust.

‘Never Again’ must mean never again for everyone

Provision of Guardrails

The Holocaust Centre has submitted that the teaching of Holocaust studies has ‘Clear learning outcomes and teacher guidance…’

We agree.

If the Ministry of Education is insistent that Holocaust Studies are to be included as a compulsory yet restricted part of the Year 10 curriculum then it must insist on specific guidelines and guardrails.

We would see these as need to include;

1. That students must not be taught that antisemitism is in any way a unique, urgent, or more evil and harmful form of racism than other forms of racism.
2. Teaching should be that the Holocaust is unique only in the industrial form of mass killing of a civilian population.
3. Racism can arise in any society or ethnic group and take a number of forms and intensities.
4. Racism must be combated as it is incredibly harmful for social wellbeing.
5. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition and examples of antisemitism have not been endorsed or adopted by any institution or government agency in Aotearoa New Zealand. Accordingly, they should be explicitly rejected in all course outlines as an unacceptable restriction on academic freedom and right of free speech.
6. The ‘Never Again’ lesson to be taken from the Holocaust is universal, and not related and restricted to promotion for the genocidal Zionist project in Historic Palestine.

Ngā mihi,
John Minto
Co-Chair PSNA